And Mr Torode said it was “ace” and he’s not the only one who thought that, as the idea of Indian Sushi trended on social networking site Twitter and has since been covered in the widely in the national press.

Mr Hale said: “It was a big risk, but I love being creative and Indian Sushi just works well. I love my concept of Sushi fusion.

“Gregg thinks it’ll be a new trend that takes off. So watch this space.”

The entrepreneur, who runs his own altitude training company, then had to cook a surprise ingredient of pigeon which he pan-roasted and served with mashed potato, roasted chestnuts, a chestnut and mushroom stuffing and kale.

The more traditional dish secured Mr Hale a place in the next round.

He said: “We then had to cook a two-course meal for three of last year’s finalists.

“It was all very intense as there’s such a strict time-frame which you don’t have when cooking at home.”

He added that his first dish of Walnut Gnocchi looked like a “dogs dinner” as he found he had too little time to make the Italian potato dish with a wild mushroom sauce and a sage cracker.

Fortunately, Mr Hale’s “theatrical dessert” of chocolate soil, banana ice-cream, tempered chocolate with a warm caramel sauce went down a treat as the judges enjoyed pouring the hot sauce over the chocolate which melted through to reveal the ice cream and chocolate soil.

The dessert had secured the self-taught chef a place in the quarter-finals, fighting off hundreds in the audition process and 40 other contestants to be in the last 24 of the popular BBC One cooking show.